Isabel
Jay
was born in
Wandsworth, London, on October 17, 1879. Hers was a musical family and
she began singing in public
when she was twelve. In 1895, she entered the Royal Academy of Music
where,
at the
end of her course in July 1897, she became the first student to be
awarded the
Gilbert R. Betjemann medal for operatic singing.

The same month, she signed a three-year
contract with the D'Oyly Carte
Opera Company. Within days, she was given a weeks try-out, singing
Elsie
Maynard in the first London revival of The Yeomen
of the Guard. It
was immediately clear that this beautiful young woman, with her
pleasant
personality and superb voice, would have a very successful singing
career. She
immediately joined one of the D'Oyly Carte touring opera companies as
principal
soprano and, during the following season, sang Phyllis in Iolanthe,
Yum-Yum in The Mikado, Elsie in Yeomen,
Princess Lucilla Chloris
in His Majesty, Aline in The Sorcerer,
and Mabel in The
Pirates of Penzance.

In August 1898, she joined the main D'Oyly Carte
company at the Savoy Theatre.
For a few weeks, she was an understudy to Emmie Owen and Ruth Vincent
in a
revival of The Gondoliers. Then she was given her
first part, playing
the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury, in a revival (with The
Sorcerer)
that ran from September to December, 1898.

The Sunday Times,
September 25, 1898

Dear old Trial by Jury once more
furnishes the
concluding section of a most agreeable musical evening. I do not
remember a more engaging Plaintiff than Miss Isabel Jay, a
pretty girl with a pretty voice.

She next played the minor part of Aloes in The
Lucky Star from January 7
to May 31, 1899. This was immediately followed, from June 6 to November
25,
1899, by again playing the Plaintiff in another revival of Trial
by Jury
- apart from a few occasions when she stood in for Ruth Vincent as
Josephine in
H.M.S. Pinafore, the other half of the double-bill.

The next production was The Rose of Persia
(libretto by Basil Hood &
music by Arthur Sullivan), scheduled to open on November 29, 1899.
Arthur
Sullivan had engaged American coloratura soprano Ellen Beach Yaw to
sing the
title role of Sultana Zubeydah. She had an incredible vocal range that
Sullivan
decided to showcase by writing music for her that required her to hit a
top F
in her first song. Ruth Vincent , who had expected to be given the
leading
sopranos role, was, instead, given the comparatively minor part of
Scent of
Lillies. This so incensed her that she resigned from the company and
her part
was reallocated to Jessie Rose (although, later in the season, it was
taken
over by Decima Moore). Isabel Jay created the role of Blush of Morning
in the
production.

Although critics expressed their approval of the new
work when it opened on
November 29, 1899, several expressed doubts as to whether Miss Yaw
would be
able to perform the high-note cadenza night after night. In the event,
she
didn't. After a couple of weeks, Mrs. D'Oyly Carte sacked her. The part
was
given to Isabel Jay. She was an enormous success and the opera ran
until June
29, 1900. From then till she left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, she
was its
leading soprano.

In the next production, from June 30 to November 5,
1900, she played Mabel in The
Pirates of Penzance:

Click photo to
enlarge

The Era

Miss Isabel Jay's bright, alert acting and fascinating personality
would
have condoned many deficiencies. But in addition to winning all hearts
by her freshness and earnestness, Miss Jay gave us a delightfully easy
and accomplished rendering of her share of the score, and the way in
which she used a very valuable voice told of sound training and keen
intelligence.

This success was followed by her playing the title
role in the first London revival of Patience - from
November 7, 1900 to April 20, 1901. During the
run, Isabel Jay was made an associate of The Royal Academy of Music.

The Era

Miss Jay is in possession of a fresh and excellent voice and, although
she may not be so experienced an actress as the gifted lady [Leonora
Braham] who created the part, she is endowed with sufficient nous to
give refreshing piquancy to the lines with which she is entrusted.

Click photo to enlarge

She next created the roles of Lady Rose Pippin in The
Emerald Isle
(April 27 to November 8, 1901) and the Gipsy Woman in the short-lived Ib
and
Little Christina (November 14 to 19, 1901), before playing
Phyllis in the
first London revival of Iolanthe (December 7, 1901
to March 29, 1902).
That was to be her last performance for the D'Oyly Carte company she
had
belonged to for five years. It was obviously a considerable wrench. It
is
reported that, in one of her last performances, she broke down during
one of
her songs and had to leave the stage. Later she declared: I do
not think any
part of my stage career yielded so much pleasure as my five years
association
with the Savoy operas, she was to write more than twenty years later.
But her
theatrical career was not at an end and far greater successes lay ahead.
Isabel Jay left the Savoy to marry, on April 16, 1902, Henry Cavendish,
the
African explorer who was later to become the 6th Baron Waterpark. For
18
months, Isabel Jay was away from the stage, during which time she gave
birth to
a daughter, Cecilia, who was born on June 11, 1903.

Her singing career was re-launched with a couple of
successful musical plays
- Lionel Moncktons A Country Girl at
Dalys Theatre (where she
took over the soprano role on October 24, 1903) and The
Cingalee (which
opened at Dalys on March 5, 1904). The music for both was written by
Paul A.
Rubens (1875-1917).

Now firmly re-established as a West End star , Isabel
Jay was invited to sing
before King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Chatsworth on January 5,
1905.
Afterwards, she was presented with a brooch by the Queen.

Next, Isabel Jay starred in the London premiere of
Andr Messagers opera Veronique
that opened on April 22, 1905, at the Apollo Theatre and her
performance
was received with tumultuous acclaim. She was then engaged by Frank
Curzon to
star in the long-running success, The White Chrysanthemum,
that opened
at the Criterion Theatre on August, 1905. Her co-star was Henry Lytton
(1865-1936) the D'Oyly Carte mainstay with whom she had appeared in the
1899
revival of Trial by Jury.

Frank Curzon
Click photo to enlarge

Frank Curzon (1869-1927), was an actor who had become
an important theatre
manager, the lessee of the Avenue, Criterion, Comedy, Prince of Wales
and
Wyndhams theatres. A superb publicist, administrator and director, he
had
already produced a string of long-running hits. With Isabel Jay, he was
to
create even more.

Her next long-running triumph was The Girl
behind the Counter, which
opened at Wyndhams on April 21, 1906. Her theatrical career
was
obviously successful: her marriage was not and, later in the year, it
was
dissolved.

On December 12, 1906, Liza Lehmanns The
Vicar Of Wakefield that
opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre, starring Isabel Jay. It was a
flop.
Including the Manchester tryout, it survived for only nine weeks. The
fault was
with the wordy libretto and not with the excellent cast that included
the
famous American baritone David Bispham, who later declared, In
the charming
Miss Isabel Jay, I had the one woman on the London stage who filled the
eye as
well as the ear in her rendering of the part of the wayward but
captivating
Olivia.

At this point, Frank Curzon, as always correctly
reading the publics mood,
decided to commission a series of spectacular musical plays that would
star
Isabel Jay at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The person he engaged to be
composer, principal book author and sole lyricist was Paul A Rubens.
His brief
was simple - memorable tunes were essential, while the main requirement
of the
story was that it provided plenty of opportunities for exotic sets,
elaborate
costumes and a host of beautiful chorus girls. That is exactly what
Rubens
provided.

His first work for Curzon, Miss Hook of
Holland, had a Dutch setting.
Opening on December 3, 1906, it ran for over a year. This was followed
by My
Mimosa Maid (set on the French Riviera) that despite an
impressive cast,
including G P Huntley, George Barrett, Maurice Farkoa, Gracie Leigh,
and Eva
Kelly (Mrs G P Huntley), had a brief run, surviving only from
April 21 to
July 11, 1908.

As a result of this disappointment, Curzon turned to
other writers to produce
the next showcase for Isabel Jay. With a book by Frederick Lonsdale and
music
by Sydney Jones, King of Cadonia, that opened on
September 3, 1908, was
a considerable critical and commercial success.

King of CadoniaSouvenir of 200th Performance
March 19, 1909

Front cover

Portrait of
Isabel Jay

Portrait of
Isabel Jay

Click photo to
enlarge

The next two shows in which she starred were again
written by Rubens - Dear
Little Denmark (which opened on September, 1909) and The
Balkan Princess
(which opened on February 19, 1910). Although neither were memorable,
Isabel
Jays enormous star quality ensured their success.

On July 28, 1910, Isabel Jay and Frank
Curzon were married.

At the end of the run of The Balkan
Princess, on April 29, 1911,she
announced her retirement from the stage. On September 20, 1915, she
gave birth to her second daughter,
Pamela
Stephanie.

Her considerable vocal accomplishments had brought
her stardom in operetta,
modern opera and musical plays. It might have been assumed that she
might again
have resumed her illustrious career. But it was not to be.

In time, as a result of the scarlet fever she had
contracted as a child, her
health began to deteriorate.

Isabel Jay

1908 -
as Paulette in My Mimosa Maid

With her sister, Ethel

Click photo to
enlarge

Isabel
Jay died, aged 47, on February 26, 1927, at Monte Carlo.
She had been
on a
cruise
with her second husband.
Two years after her death, the
Royal Academy of Music instituted the Isabel Jay Memorial Prize in her
memory.

I gratefully
acknowledge the considerable help I received in writing this article
from both Fiona Dunn (the grand-daughter of Isabel Jay), and
John Cannon (the hon. archivist to The Gilbert and Sullivan Society).